The netpaper about Elftowners, by Elftowners, for Elftowners.
Jennifer Government.
By Max Barry
Review by [GnomviD], one of our prospective Heralder-to-be-s.
Jennifer Government was written by author Max Barry in 2003, and it mixes political satire with a mild version of cyberpunk. By “mild version”, I mean that it’s not as technophilic as other books of the cyberpunk genre, and focuses more on the lives of ordinary people in the strange world that Barry has created as the setting for the book.
This world is actually the one we live in right now, but the global situation is much different from the one we know. Governments have collapsed and the true power is held by multinational corporations. America has bought Australia, Canada, The United Kingdom, Russia, Southern and Central America and South Africa. The socialist Europe is isolated from the ultra capitalistic America and the rest of the world is far behind in development. Whilst America is the largest country in the world, it is also the one in which the government has the least control over things. According to Americans, capitalism is the greatest thing man has discovered since toast, and they have embraced it with full hearts. The country is actually run by the great corporations of the world, which means that power lies in the hands of a small cabal of executive officers.
It might seem as if the government is powerless against these corporations, which it in fact is, but it still has some institutions for keeping the order. The Police Inc. is the most visible. Now, since taxes have been abolished, the Police Inc. only have the money to prevent crimes from happening. If they want to investigate a crime after it’s been done, they have to rely on funding from the victim’s loved ones. As quite many aren’t too enthusiastic to spend their money on these things, many crimes go unsolved. Whilst the government think it still has ultimate control of things, most companies merely regard them as a menace keeping them from carrying out the promotional campaigns they dream of. The NRA, now a privately owned company, is the largest military force in the world, for example.
The companies of the U.S have divided into two alliances; U.S Alliance and Team Advantage. The critical differences between these two are that U.S. Alliance only accept one company from each business, whilst Team Advantage accept everyone. U.S. Alliance will also only accept the best company in every business, so it’s a very specialized alliance, containing such companies as Pepsi, Nike and Boeing. The only rule when being part of these alliances is that you only buy products from other companies that are members of the same alliance as yours, meaning that U.S. Alliance has great quality at a marginally higher price than Team Advantage, whilst Team Advantage has a cheaper price, but the quality is found lacking compared to that of U.S Alliance. The corporations even have such power over the employees that they change their surname to the name of the corporation they’re working for.
Another way in which this book distinguishes itself from others is the way that characters are handled and how the plot evolves. Whilst most other books revolve around maybe two or three characters, where one is especially important, Jennifer Government is a story about the lives of six different persons all equally important for the plot. What’s amazing about this book is the fashion in which the characters are brought together.
The book starts when Hack Nike, a merchandise distribution officer for Nike, is offered a contracted job by John Nike, vice president of Nike’s guerilla marketing, and since he’s never before done any real work, he is understandably thrilled about this, and signs a contract without reading it through. He is less thrilled when he realizes that his new job includes shooting teenagers. Nike’s plan is to get street cred for their new shoes by killing fifteen of their customers, and making sure it looks like ghetto kids. Since these shoes is the single thing that teenagers in America want to get their hands on, the job is made easier when teenagers across the country swamp Nike Towns to get a pair.
Appalled by the situation, Hack goes to The Police Inc. to see if they can do anything about his situation. The police, however, misunderstand his situation, and sell the contract to the NRA, meaning that they have to carry out the deed instead, something that Hack hadn’t planned from the beginning. The life of Buy Mitsui, a middle-aged stock broker who’s burned out, is drastically changed when a young girl dies in his arms at the local Nike Town as the NRA carries out the deed. As he’s a witness of the crime, special agent Jennifer Government, a single mother who doesn’t take shit from anyone, comes to interrogate him about the crime, and ends up saving him from committing suicide.
Shocked by the happenings, Hack goes home to tell his unemployed girlfriend Violet, who becomes very mad at Hack for doing such a stupid thing as to sign a contract without first reading the details. This is one of the things which drives her to leave him later in the book, to work as a hacker for ExxonMobil.
Whist not very protruding in the beginning, a young man named Billy NRA is later involved in the plot, becoming a very important character, as he’s given a mission to assassinate the President of the U.S. government.
The plot in this book is like a six-ended braid, each end being one of the above mentioned characters: in the beginning, they’re apart, but as time goes and the story progresses, they become more entangled with each other, to the point where this group of people will decide the fate of the world, as the two alliances of corporations declare open war against each other, U.S. Alliance plan to abolish the government once and for all, and Nike plots to call down long-range artillery on Reebok headquarters. Basically, what begins as an unusual contract from John Nike to Hack Nike quickly escalates into the first corporate war the world has ever seen, with all three parties trying to clutch the administrative power of America. With the government powerless against these alliances of corporations, the only thing that can stop them from destroying one another is the executive officers of the companies, and their common sense. In the end, all depends on how far they’re willing to go in order to earn more money.
I mentioned above that this book was a sort of political satire, something which I haven’t really covered yet. You see, the book’s message to its readers is this: beware of capitalism! It’s intended to show the dangers of a society where capitalism has run amok, with nothing to stop it. The author uses real names of companies to make it seem more realistic, which I appreciate. Now, I don’t, and neither do I expect anyone else to, for that matter, believe that McDonalds are going to send sea-based cruise missiles towards Burger King to remove the competition, but it makes you realize the message more easily, and it seems more real than if it would be made-up companies. The book also contains characters with different political views. Reading the opinions of a capitalist and a socialist regarding the same thing makes it easier to understand the message.
All in all, Jennifer Government is a great book that I recommend to everyone. Barry has an amazing way of writing which sucks you in from page one, making Jennifer Government one of those books that you pick up to read and don’t put down until you’re done with it. He mixes the seriousness of the book with subtle humor that makes it really funny once in a while, without destroying the mood. Jennifer Government is a great book, from the beginning to the very end of it, which I whole-heartedl
y recommend for anyone who enjoys reading a fantastic book once in a while.
10/10 – One of the best books I’ve ever read.
Joel Monsen Nordström, SP1C.
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